


you drew stars around my scars

by twilightstargazer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's about the healing, Zutara Week 2020, katara can't heal his physical scar but she can heal the scars on his soul!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:59:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25642435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: “I don’t know-- you never told me how you got this,” she says softly, her thumb rubbing at the edge where smooth skin gives way to scar tissue.He seems shocked at that. “You mean you don’t know?” At the shake of her head, his mouth presses into a thin line. “It’s not exactly a great bedtime story.”-or, katara learns the story behind zuko's scar
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 270
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	you drew stars around my scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hooksandheroics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/gifts).



> written for zutara week day 6: affirm
> 
> for Jazz, who let's me scream about zutara in their DMs everyday ❤

**affirm** /əˈfəːm/

_ offer (someone) emotional support or encouragement. _

* * *

As with most things, it starts with Sokka.

“I got this one when I was a four and slipped on the ice, and I got this one when Katara was practicing with her water knives, and, oh! This one is from when we escaped from Ba Sing Se. It kinda looks like a koalaotter if you squint,” he says eagerly as he rolls up the hem of his pants to show off the slightly raised patch of skin on his shin.

“It does not look like a koalaotter,” Katara says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just a  _ scar _ .”

“That’s because you don’t have an artist’s eye,” he sniffs in disdain. “Aang, you see a koalaotter, right?”

He hesitates, looking between the siblings “Uh, well,” he fumbles, leaning to get a closer look of Sokka’s leg, “I guess if I  _ squint _ \--”

“Don’t mind them, Sokka, I think it looks like a koalaotter,” says Toph, where she leaned back against Appa’s side, flicking pebbles in the air.

He grins triumphantly. “See! I told you--  _ hey _ .” He glares at her as she starts to laugh.”I’ve got to stop falling for that.”

“You make it too easy,” she giggles before turning over onto her stomach. “I don’t have any cool scars.”

“How would you even know?”

“I just do, Twinkletoes,” she says, blowing a raspberry his way.

Aang looks sour for a second before he brightens and yanks his pants up over his knee. “One time in Omashu I was Bumi and I got this,” he says excitedly gesturing to the hypertrophic scar that graced his knee. “It looks like a map of the Fire Nation!”

Sokka leans in closer, trying to get a better look at it in the flickering light of the campfire. He strokes his chin and says, “Yeah, it actually kinda does.”

“Let me guess,” Katara says flatly, “You and Bumi had a slide accident, didn’t you?”

Aang’s responding sheepish laughter and the faint colour that rises to his cheeks tell her everything that she needs to know.

“What about you, Katara?” he asks, directing the attention to her instead of himself, “Do you have any cool scars?”

She shrugs. “No, not really.”

He pouts. “C’mon. Not even a little one?”

“Yeah Katara, not even a little one,” taunts Sokka, “You know, like when Gran-Gran taught you how to sew and you accidentally stitched your glove to your thigh.”

“Sokka!” she snaps, cheeks ablaze, while the others roar with laughter. “At least I know  _ how _ to sew. You still ask Gran-Gran to darn your socks!” 

It’s his turn to flush now, embarrassment creeping over him. “Zuko!” he calls out, eyes falling on the other boy who’s been surprisingly quiet this whole time. He’s sitting in the shadows, just out of their little fireside circle. “You’re up. Story time.”

His good eye widens as they all look towards him, waiting. “Uh,” he stutters for a moment before pulling the neckline of his shirt. “I have one on my shoulder that kind of looks like a fire lily?” He twists, giving them a glimpse of it for just a second before fixing his shirt to rights. “Azula pushed me into the turtle duck pond when I was ten.”

“Your sister is a psychopath,” Sokka says unimpressed.

“She’s not a psychopath,” he says, still awkward as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just… misunderstood.”

“If you say so.”

“I’m going to take a walk,” he says, abruptly standing up and stalking off into the night before anyone else can get a word in. 

They all watch him leave but Katara’s eyes linger the longest, even as Toph changes the topic by saying, “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? I’ll go first! It was sand!”

They continue on with their usual fireside banter until they start yawning more than talking and then, one by one, they tuck in for the night, curling up in their sleeping bags as the fire dwindles to just embers.

Katara waits until Sokka’s sleepy mumbling trail off into snores before she unfurls herself and heads down the rocky pathway to the shore that Zuko had taken earlier.

She finds him there, standing on the still warm sand and staring out at the ocean, nothing but the faint glow of the moon to illuminate his profile. The moon tugs at something in her veins, calling her towards the water, but she ignores it in favour of padding across to where he stood in complete silence.

He doesn’t say anything as she comes to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder. The heat radiating off of him is a nice contrast to the cool night’s air that swirls around them, laden heavy with salt and sea.

They stand there together, watch the waves lap against the shore, just far enough inland that the water barely brushes against their toes.

“Everyone’s gone to bed,” she says after a couple moments have passed.

When he doesn’t say anything in return, she shifts closer, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You should get some rest too.”

“I’m fine.”

She sighs inwardly before moving to step in front of his gaze and his head jerks back. “Look, Sokka didn’t mean anything by asking about-- he just lacks tact.”

There’s a faint quirk of his lips at the corners. “I think at this point Momo has more tact than your brother.”

“And you’d be right,” she murmurs in agreement. It’s then she realises how close they’re standing, the way she can make out every line and edge of his face in the watery moonlight. She hasn’t stood this close to him since their brief time in the crystal catacombs together.

The memory of their time together sparks something within her and Katara can’t help but let her eyes drift to his scar, the reddened, raised edges that cover his face from eyebrow to cheekbone.

She expects him to turn his head as he does whenever he catches anyone looking at the scar, but to her surprise, all he does is swallow thickly.

“I should have let you use the magic water when I had the chance huh.”

“Spirit water,” she corrects him, automatic, “To be honest, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t. I ended up using it to save Aang after Azula shot him with lightning.” She fixes him with a look. “She really is a psychopath.”

Zuko shrugs half-heartedly. “She’s still my sister.”

Katara worries her lip, hesitating for a moment before she brings her hand to rest on his cheek, feeling the bumpy, irregular surface of his skin beneath it. He winces at the contact but he still makes no move to turn away from her.

“I don’t know-- you never told me how you got this,” she says softly, her thumb rubbing at the edge where smooth skin gives way to scar tissue.

He seems shocked at that. “You mean you don’t know?” At the shake of her head, his mouth presses into a thin line. “It’s not exactly a great bedtime story.”

“I didn’t expect it to be,” she says, and then adds, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine.” He flashes her a wry grin but there’s no humour behind it, just a long lasting sadness. “It was a spectacle in the Fire Nation. The Fire Lord duelling the crown prince in an agni kai.”

Katara stumbles back as the weight of his words hit her like a freight train. The hand she had on his cheek drops, coming to cover her mouth which had fallen open in shock.

“An agni kai? Your  _ father _ did this to you?” she asks, her voice just barely above a whisper as she tries to even begin to comprehend just what Zuko might have gone through. Suddenly, his actions in the early days start to make sense.

“My uncle invited me to a war meeting. It was my first time there and they were discussing an invasion plan for the Earth Kingdom. A general proposed sacrificing an entire legion of new recruits-- children, barely sixteen-- and everyone just went along with it. They didn’t see anything wrong with that,” he explains, weariness dripping from every word and settling deep in her bones. “I spoke up. Said it was wrong to lead them to their deaths like that. But by speaking against the general, I spoke against my father and he didn’t appreciate that.”

“And he challenged you to an agni kai,” she finishes, horrified.

Zuko clenches his jaw and nods once before ducking his head. “I didn’t want to fight him. I begged him for forgiveness but my father saw it as a sign of weakness. So he burnt me and then banished me from the kingdom. The only way for me to return home was if I redeemed myself, redeemed my  _ honour _ , by capturing the avatar,” he says, eyes flicking up to look at her from beneath his lashes.

It’s quiet for a long time, his words hanging heavy in the air. Katara feels hot and cold at the same time, the sickening chill of everything that Zuko had to go through leaking down her spin to mix with the bright, all consuming rage in her stomach. She doesn’t think she’s felt this much anger since she came face to face with Yon Rha.

Katara doesn’t realise that she’s shaking until he puts his hands on her shoulders, steadying her and the turbulent water she accidentally agitated in all of her emotion. The hems of their clothes are wet.

“Hey,” he murmurs, soft, stepping closer, into her space, “It’s okay.”

“It’s  _ okay _ ?” She chokes out a laugh that sounds like fractured glass. “It’s certainly not okay.”

“I’ve made my peace with it,” he says, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into her biceps, “I thought that when he gave me the scar he took away my honour and that I had to find the avatar to regain it. But I don’t believe that anymore. I’m the only one who can get it back and by helping Aang restore order in the world… well, I like to think it’s a step in the right direction.”

She wants to laugh at how easy he says it, at how he truly believes that there’s still more making up that he needs to do before he can consider himself  _ worthy _ again.

It’s that expression on his face-- half hope, half determination-- that melts the fight right out of her.

“Zuko,” she starts tenderly. Her hand finds its way back up to his cheek, brushing along the sharp line of his cheekbone, brushing over his scar. “You are the most  _ honourable _ person I know of.”

She’s close enough that she can see the way his eyes widen at her declaration and the way his white-gold skin colours with a dull flush. His cheek is warm under her palm.

“All of this-- I hate that it happened to you, but you’re a good man. An honourable man. And I’m so glad to have you with us,” she tells him.

Out of everything, this is what gets him to look away, the praise she showers upon him, and Katara can’t help but grin.

She leans forward, closing the narrow strip of space between them, and brushes her lips against his cheek, soft, quick, perhaps too quick for both of them though they would never say it.

His smile is fond when she pulls back, the blush still swirling in his cheeks matching the new one that rises to hers when she meets his eyes. There’s a new warmth blazing in them as he looks down at her, and Katara feels herself colour further.

“Thank you, Katara,” he tells her, affection clinging to the simple words. He squeezes her arms once more before letting his hands drop to his sides. It leaves her strangely cold and she watches as he flexes his fingers, not looking at her again.

Tentatively, she reaches over, taking hold of his hand. It’s much larger than hers, pale with long delicate fingers, and surprisingly calloused for someone who’s a bender, and royalty on top of that. She supposes that it comes from years of training with his dao swords.

His eyes are questioning when she looks back up at him, and she offers a small smile in return. 

“Come on,” she says, tangling her fingers in his as she leads him away from the shoreline. “Let’s get some rest.”

The weight of unsaid things linger between them as they slowly pick their way back up to the campsite, a quiet, sweet thing that blooms in the still air of the night. Neither of them say a word as they climb into their sleeping bags, but they lie next to each other, eyes roving across faces and drinking in the tiniest of details that are visible in the light of the dying embers. 

Zuko drifts to sleep first and she finds herself looking at his scar again as sleep starts to consume her too. A reminder of his painful past, but hopefully a guiding light to shape his future.

As Katara finally succumbs to sleep, her last thought is that she hopes she’s part of that future with him too.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com/) | [writing twitter](https://twitter.com/twlghtstrgzgmt)


End file.
